The first armistice was declared for the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
one hundred and six years ago, in 1918.
That armistice was broken, dishonoured, and ignored
until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles 28th June 1919,
five years to the day after the shot that started the war,
and assassinated Arch Duke Ferdinand, was fired.
The Allied signatories of the treaty
were France, Japan, Italy, Russia,
the UK and Northern Ireland, and the USA;
they all signed the document together.
The Central Powers/Central Empires, on the other side,
each signed individually. They were The German Empire,
Bulgaria-which had a Tsar until 1946, The Ottoman,
and lastly the Austro-Hungarian, empires.
The statues that mark the end of the war
that I want to see, but I know I won't find them,
are dedicated to all the unknown women
in the Allied countries who worked in the jobs
that the men left behind when they became soldiers.
Those jobs had to be done, and when done by women
were done for much reduced pay. Those Women
'were not householders' and could not vote,
could not be recognised as citizens of their country.
Where are the statues to the women who nursed the men,
wounded on the battlefields, and did so much more besides?
The statues to those women who held up half the skies
where the men flew to bomb the enemy underneath?
All whilst as women, hoping for more but expecting less
sought to earned their part in the peacetime society
they believed would follow from their efforts.
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